Agents (HOST)

Agents are programs that run on the target system, which can be either an Operating System or an application such as SAP, PeopleSoft, etc. They establish the connection between the Automation Engine and those target systems, start the execution of tasks and make both their monitoring and the corresponding reporting possible. Agents create log files that record what occurs.

As an administrator user, you install and configure them. There are different possibilities for installing the agents:

During the installation of the Automation Engine, either as on-premises or containerized agents.
Later on via the Automic Web Interface in the Process Assembly perspective of Client 0
Later on via the Automic Web Interface in the Administration perspective of any client.
For SQL, REST, Windows, and UNIX agents, later on using scripts.

For more information, see Adding and Configuring Agents.

Object Definition

Object class: System object
Object type/Short form: HOST

This page includes the following:

Prerequisites

Do the following to be able to start working with an agent:

Install, add and/or download the agent, see Adding and Configuring Agents
Set the Authentication Method, see Agent Authentication
Configure the INI file, see Agents INI file
Authenticate the agents in Client 0
Assign the agent to the clients it should have access to and define the rights it should have, see Assigning Clients to Agents
Define user and user group authorizations on the agent. This grants users and user groups specific rights on the agent. You do it in each client. For more information, see Authorizations Page.

Login and Connection

An agent logs in only once and, once connected, it remains always connected. The following duplicate login validation takes place:

Upon installation, the agent starts and tries to log in. If there is no agent connection with the same name, the Automation Engine accepts the login attempt and stores the agent name, port number, start time etc. It deletes this information when the particular agent connection ends.
Agents connect via TCP/IP to the communication process (CP) or Java communication process (JCP). The communication between CP/JCP and agent is encrypted. It is the agents that are in charge of keeping the connection alive, as well. When it is lost, they try to reconnect; the interval of reconnect attempts is configurable.

For more information, see TLS/SSL Communication and Encryption and Non-TLS/SSL Communication and Encryption.

Agents List

You define the number of agents to be displayed on the list in the AGENT_LIST_LIMIT key in the UC_SYSTEM_SETTINGS variable. For more information, see AGENT_LIST_LIMIT. The default is 5,000, the maximum is 20,000.

The number of agents currently displayed is shown on the list toolbar. A plus next to the number indicates that there are more agents available than those displayed. For example, if the AGENT_LIST_LIMIT has been set to "200" and more than 200 agents have been assigned to the client, Agents (200+) is displayed on the toolbar.

The following columns are displayed by default:

Status

Inactive agents are grayed out

Name

Maximum length: 32 characters
Always in uppercase
Do not use special characters when adding an agent to avoid problems in the target system

Authenticated

Authenticated agents are check marked
Version
TLS

Agents that use TLS/SSL and establish a connection with the Java communication process (JCP) are check marked

If an Agent is not check marked, it is a non-TLS/SSL Agent and establishes a connection with a communication process (CP) or connect through the CP port of the TLS Gateway, see TLS Gateway.
Platform

Platform type of the agent

Note: This is not the operating system.

Hardware

Information about the computer on which the agent is running such as the system type, number of processors, or processor type

Software

Type of platform or operating system of the computer on which the agent is installed

Software Version
IP address
Port no.
Last logoff
Number of clients

Number of user-defined clients in which the Agent has authorizations

Linked

Whether the agent is linked to a ServiceManager or not

This depends on the settings made in the Service Manager section.

Process ID
ZDU Version

Either base (B) or target (T) version of the agent in connection with a ZDU, see Zero Downtime Upgrade

The following columns are also available:

Last check

The time at which the status and other agent-related information was last checked
Communication Process

Communication process connected with the agent
Time difference

Time difference between the time of the agent and the time of the Automation Engine

This is helpful for interpreting job reports when the Automation Engine and the agent run on different hosts with different system times.
MIB

MIB information of the Agent that is used in connection with SNMP

If available, the unique ID that identifies each monitored net element is displayed.

For more information, see SNMP Support.
Services

Whether the Agent performs a special service:
- MAIL - Agent used for e-mail connection
- SQL - Database Agent used for resolving variable objects of type SQL
Compression

Compression method used as standard in File Transfers
Authorizations

Privileges granted to this Agent in the current Client:
- R = Read, send data by a File Transfer
- W = Write, receive data from a File Transfer
- X = Execute
Job res. max.

Maximum Agent resources available for jobs
FT. res. max.

Maximum agent resources available for File Transfers
Keep alive

Interval in seconds in which the connection to the communication process is checked

If the connection is lost, the agent tries to reconnect automatically to the first available communication process (CP), which could be a different agent to the previous one.
Roles

Administrators can define a role (free text) for the agent in its INI file. If so, it is displayed here.
TLS Gateway

Name of the TLS Gateway that is used when a non-TLS Agent is connected through the CP port of the TLS Gateway, see TLS Gateway.
Net Area

By default, this is the name of the Automation Engine system. For more information, see Net Areas in the Automation Engine.

Important! This field is populated only for TLS Gateway instances that are used as a communication process (CP) and are assigned to a net area. It does not apply to the Agents nor to TLS Gateway instances acting as an Agent as only communication processes can be grouped in net areas.

More information:

Displaying the Agent Variables

To see the variables that have been defined for a particular agent, select it and click the Details button on the toolbar. The Details pane displays the variables and the values that have been defined for the agent .

Filtering the Content of the List

It is possible to use different filters to customize the content of the Agents list. Click the Filter button on the toolbar to open the Filter pane. Agent Name, Status and IP Address are always displayed but you can add additional criteria.

Tip: You can share filtered lists with other users. You can also bookmark the filtered list to be able to access it quickly next time. For more information, see Bookmarking and Sharing Links.

Job Execution

If a Job is started on an OS Agent, it will be initiated in the OS independently of the agent. The agent monitors it and reports its status to the Automation Engine. When the Job finishes, follow-up Jobs can be triggered.

Job Reports

Job reports can be configured in the Job object. When the Job is executed they are transferred to the Automation Engine database. The OS Agent provides the report as a file. The Automation Engine loads the report as individual blocks into the database.
Should the report exceed a configurable limit, only data with the configured size will be transferred into the database, where the last block transferred always contains the file's end. Thus the beginning and end of a Job report are available in the database.

File Transfer Objects

A File Transfer is an executable object that is always executed between two OS Agents. A TCP/IP connection is created between both. The data transfer is encrypted.

The agent sending files reports the Job status and the end of the Job execution to the Automation Engine system. The connection between the two agents is closed at the end of the File Transfer. For more information, see File Transfers (JOBF).

Monitoring and Reporting

As soon as a Job is started, the agent starts monitoring and reporting its status to the Automation Engine. Likewise, when the Job finishes, it reports it. For more information, see Reports for Servers and Agents.